Any tips on getting a cleaner punch?

[musicianvw]

I have always had this problem with stand alone recorders when i mess up a guitar part and try to do the punch it it never sounds smooth there is always a gap or over lay lets just say you can always tell there was a punch in there. My only way of ever dealing with it was doing the whole guitar part over from start to finish. I was wondering if anyone had any tips. I was told about crossfading in a daw but i would like to stick with the stand alone recorder and not move to computer recording thanks.

 

[-mjk-]

Hi @musicianvw

Good punching technique is almost as musical as the performance. Personally, I find the DP machines are rather slow on punches, compared to the big tape machines. You really should use Undo to reset every bad punch, or you will end up with a string of punch marks.

But, there are things you can do to make it work better:

1. Make sure you punch at a high dynamic transition point. You have to get used to the response time of the machine, but generally you punch as close as possible to the very leading edge of a hit, like a pick stroke. If you've tried that and just can't seem to get a clean punch, go onto #2.
2. Use Autopunch. The advantage is, you can very precisely mark the in and out points, and redo them until you get it right. You can put the machine in Jog mode and position the waveform to a transition point and set your in and out marks. Try the punch and adjust the points as necessary until you get it.
3. For fixing repeating parts, use Copy/Paste instead of punch. C/P is surprisingly forgiving on the DP machines, and with the precise locating ability mentioned above, you can usually copy a previous section and drop it in over a mistake much cleaner than an actual punch.